People on the left frequently mock conservatives for being people of faith and believing in God. Yet if you listen to leading voices from the Progressive community, you would think we’re living in the end times.

Trump recently rolled back some of Obama’s policies on climate change and has also taken action to roll back regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2015, President Barack Obama created the Clean Power Plan to slow climate disruption. It was the first action ever taken by the US government to cut carbon pollution from existing power plants.

And this week, with the stroke of a pen, President Trump directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take steps to end it.

Trump may have just signed a death warrant for our planet (at least, for a planet that is liveable for humans). And the lies he told to justify it have real consequences for real Americans, here and now.

First, Trump says he wants to dismantle the Clean Power Plan because it represents what he calls “job-killing regulation.” False — limited losses in some sectors are dwarfed by gains in others.

The potential for job growth in the clean energy sector dwarfs any potential job growth in the fossil fuel economy. For example, Trump promised the Keystone XL pipeline would create 28,000 jobs when he approved the project. But he had to use a huge multiplier to get to even that low number. In fact, it would create about 3,000 temporary construction jobs and only 35 permanent jobs. That’s right: 35 permanent jobs.

By comparison, in 2016 the number of jobs in solar grew 25% from the year prior, according to figures from the nonprofit Solar Foundation, while jobs in the rest of the economy had less than 2% growth. Renewable energy jobs now create jobs 12 times faster than the rest of the economy.

Jones served briefly in the Obama administration as a ‘green jobs czar’ until it was discovered he had expressed views in line with the ‘9/11 Truth’ movement.

He and other progressives have been pushing a green economy agenda for years but even with a sympathetic president in the White House for eight years, we ended up with little more than Solyndra.

Michael Moore believes Trump has triggered ‘the extinction of human life on Earth’

Donald Trump has been accused of many things throughout his presidency so far, but Michael Moore blaming him for the future extinction of humanity may be the biggest.

Moore’s comments came after the president signed an executive order on Tuesday calling for an end to all efforts working to stop and reverse climate change, including rescinding Obama’s six climate change measures in hopes of boosting fossil fuels. The Environmental Protection Agency will instead be exclusively focused on “clean air and clean water.”

Trump, who previously referred to global warming as nothing more than a “hoax,” claimed this will put an end to “the war on coal” and “job-killing regulations,” praising his move as “taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy.”

In a Facebook post, Moore wrote, “Historians in the near future (because that may be the only future we have) will mark today, March 28, 2017, as the day the extinction of human life on Earth began.”

Historians in the near future will mark today, March 28, 2017, as the day the extinction of human life on earth began, thanks 2 Donald Trump

Leftists really do believe that Obama was the Messiah sent by Gaia (or somebody) to Save the World, and he was doing it, too, until that awful Satan Trump came along like a serpent and re-introduced evil to the world.

They don’t even understand what incredible childish naivette it takes to actually believe that the “fate of the world” will be determined by some guy in some office signing a piece of paper. This is an academics fantasy world gone psycho.

(Psst – hey Van, we really don’t have that much power. That is only in your fantasy in which you’ve substituted Government for an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful God)

Not true. The regs were not struck down, they were merely enjoined without prejudice until the case against them could be heard. Now that case has become moot. Which is why I wish Trump had not done this, but had instead entered a consent decree with the plaintiffs; that way the next president would have been unable to reinstate them.

Even the scientists who are pushing for this nonsense admit that, according to their predictions, the efforts outlined in the Paris Accord will only reduce the “average global temperature” by a small percentage of one degree centigrade.

Now, the claim was qualified: “Trump MAY have just signed a death warrant for our planet.”

Which leaves open the possibility that he may not have done so.

Just as “global warming” morphed into “climate change” (and thereby became practically unfalsifiable, qualifying the prediction with “may” makes it not only hysterically alarmist (“death warrant for our planet!”) but then waters down the claim into meaningless.

After all, lot of things MAY happen: a really big meteor MAY land in New York City or Moscow and be mistaken for a nuclear bomb and trigger a nuclear war, the sun MAY go nova and kill us all, some deadly disease MAY mutate into something as communicable and difficult to prevent as the common cold, some maniac may figure out a way to release smallpox into our unprotected population.

While global warming is a significant threat to human civilization, it is not an existential threat. Humans are highly adaptable, and will continue to adapt. However, anthropogenic global warming will incur significant economic costs, drive human migration with the attendant political instabilities, damage ecosystems, and result in the loss of a substantial portion of humanity’s natural inheritance. Mitigation will be less expensive and result in less permanent damage the sooner it occurs.

Zachriel: While global warming is a significant threat to human civilization, it is not an existential threat. Humans are highly adaptable, and will continue to adapt.

murkyv: “We” think “You” and your liberal talking points are FOS

The position is fully defensible. Humans are quite adept at harnessing technology to solve problems, including the production of low-carbon energy to power technological civilization, and the problem of adaptation to climate change. The most difficult issue will be the political problems associated with human migration due to rising sea levels and changing agricultural patterns, but are well-within human capabilities to address.

Climate change is not an existential threat — unless people make it so.

Mitigation will be less expensive and result in less permanent damage the sooner it occurs

Even if we stipulate everything else you wrote, what’s your basis for this claim? It’s fundamental to the green cause, and yet it’s the least plausible of all the claims they make. It should be obvious that even if the whole global warmening narrative were completely true, it will be a lot cheaper to mitigate the damage as and when it happens than to cripple ourselves now in order to prevent it. For instance the cost in 2000 dollars of building dikes in 2150 around every low-lying human habitation would be minuscule compared to what’s demanded of us now. Our grandchildren will be infinitely more prosperous than us, and better able than us to afford whatever measures they find necessary — which will be cheaper and better than anything we could do now anyway — but only if we don’t impoverish them by crippling our own progress.

Milhouse: It should be obvious that even if the whole global warmening narrative were completely true, it will be a lot cheaper to mitigate the damage as and when it happens than to cripple ourselves now in order to prevent it.

You’re posing a strawman. It isn’t necessary to “cripple” society in order to mitigate the problem of climate change. Indeed, responding to climate change requires robust economic growth to fuel the technological innovation that is required. In particular, as most of the energy infrastructure has to be replaced every few decades anyway, replacing it with updated models makes eminent sense.

Milhouse: For instance the cost in 2000 dollars of building dikes in 2150 around every low-lying human habitation would be minuscule compared to what’s demanded of us now.

It won’t be 2150 before extensive damage is done. It’s happening even now. In the next few decades, migration due to climate change will cause vast human suffering and political instability, while ecosystems will be permanently damaged. Humans are certainly capable of adapting, but are also capable of avoiding the worst aspects of anthropogenic climate change.

Funny. Two weeks ago I was listening <shudder/> to npr.
es I know but when you are moving around npr is the best way to get the confirmation hearings.

They had a feature called science friday, and they were interviewing Kim Stanley Robinson about his new book New York 2140. It was based on the odea that global warming had caused a fifty foot rise in sea levels and New York was now the new Venice.

So apparently some lefties believe that if global warming is true we can still survive.

Just as they are with BigBlow. They tout hundreds of local jobs when erecting a an Industrial Wind Turbine Farm, but virtually none of those workers are locals as they are drawn from the unions. Most of those guys just travel from one IWTF to the next.

The IWTF near me made these claims when they were pushing the project. In the end, there are just 8 permanent jobs, and not a single one of those 8 guys are locals.

Yeah, and Kim Jong Un may have signed a law requiring that sunlight be captured in jars and distributed equally across North Korea’s population, because it’s not fair that some people have to work indoors or after dark and they deserve the same amount of sunlight as everyone else.

Just because someone signs it (literally or figuratively) doesn’t make it real (or realistic), and just because Van Jones says it doesn’t make it true.